


the assassin's cowl

by drifterlovemail



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, dont give a single shit, i know it isnt out yet and thus wouldnt have been in solstice but like. i dont care, minor shadowkeep spoielrs but its just...the new exotic, new hunter exotics, we're here to be gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 06:57:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20541980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drifterlovemail/pseuds/drifterlovemail
Summary: Beautiful,Drifter thinks. What comes out is:“You look like an idiot.”aka, shin gets the assassin's cowl, and drifter thinks he looks rather nice. prompt: 'mask'





	the assassin's cowl

**Author's Note:**

> based around the new hunter exotic that's coming in shadowkeep: https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5d5af48e2dedcb0008e082a7/960x0.jpg?fit=scale

Tower celebrations are an exhausting endeavor. Usually a waste of time, Drifter finds, save for that weird juice that they toss around during the Revelry and makes him feel all woozy. That, and a hundred victory drunk and really drunk Guardians are easy to hide behind. Even easier to get them to try their hand at some massive Taken.  
It’s the funniest time when Shin jumps onto the bandwagon. There’s drawers in the Derelict still stuffed with old solstice ribbons, chocolate bar wrappers, empty Revelry tonics bottles. Drifter can invite him to Gambit or fuck him as much as he likes, but it doesn’t change that no Dredgen hunting brings absolute boredom along with it. So Shin dips out whenever Eva does, and brings the remnants back to the Annex.  


It’s a wonder Drifter hasn’t killed him yet.

Shin and Drifter don’t talk about where they are with one another, and Drifter finds they don’t need to. Sitting in silence and jabbing at one another is fun, sharing his bed better. Drifter doesn’t introduce Shin personally to Crota’s End ( -- Not that it wasn’t a conversation to find him pressed up to the Annex wall ) and stops trying to bring him into Gambit, and they border on being domestic, about as much as the two of them can be. That’s enjoyable, as long as Drifter doesn’t think on the fact too long.  


None of that makes it any less odd to walk back into the Derelict to see Shin in his Gambit-planning chair.  


“You at least bring back some of that Revelry shit?” Drifter leans himself over the back of the desk chair, stares down at Shin’s hair. “I got things to do. Beat it.”  
“They don’t have it.” Shin tells him, and leaves it there.  
Drifter sees the glint of blue over the top of his head. A sparkle caught just right in what light the place has, turned just from his view. Bastard. He reaches down to reach under Shin’s chin and push him up just enough to look. Shin doesn’t fight it - there isn’t much of a point to, he thinks. There’s a lot less to argue when he’s crashing on Drifter’s couch.

Draped over Shin is a mess of cyan jewels, a net of diamonds draped over his face and dangling off his neck. The same blue streaks his eyelids, some roughed up mess stretching past his brow towards his temple.  
Drifter isn’t easily shocked. He’d be long dead by now if he was. He doesn’t fluster like some teenager, but he and Shin have made a habit of pushing each other to their limits. Shin’s chair is spun to face the Drifter. The net hangs off Shin’s face just right, spots left open with a framing Arc glow for those eyes to stare back at him, falling just right along his jawline. _ Beautiful, _ Drifter thinks. What comes out is:  
“You look like an idiot.”  


Shin smiles up at him and Drifter kisses him straight. It’s taken in desire, if not in ease through the mask. Shin pulls him close as he had a thousand times before until Drifter’s kneeling in front of the chair and their positions reversed.  
“Take it off.” Shin says, head resting against Drifter’s, crystals into bandana.  
Drifter hesitates for a moment too long. “No.”  
“It’d be easier.”  
“You worked for that shit. I’m not gonna toss it away just to hear you whine trying to find it.”  


They both ran out of room to judge one another a long time ago. But it isn’t stopping Shin from looking like he’s about to start mocking in some annoying way, that stupid smile that makes Drifter want to fuck him silly until he shuts up back on his face. He could blow him then so he at least doesn’t have to see it, and decides quick on something else. The expression on Shin’s face vanishes fast when Drifter snakes an arm around him and pulls him down to the floor alongside him. Shin’s pressed to him then, left to fumble and find a place against Drifter’s lap. 

“How many runs through the Forest that take you?” Drifter asks.  
Shin snaps back quickly. “Aerial Zone.”  


Drifter goes to hiss back that it doesn’t matter, that he should get the point. But letting Shin know he’s frustrating him is always more of a drag than the original point.  
Instead he does something softer, bringing his hands up to hold the left half of Hunter’s face over the cowl. The Arc glow presses against Shin’s skin and blinds all the more. Drifter’s thumb goes over Shin’s lower lip for a second before tucking under one of the mask’s strings and pushing it above his mouth.  


A man like Shin Malphur would take things like this easier, in Drifter’s eye. Simply cut and run - figuratively or literally - if things feel south, as the nature of a renegade. But all the tension in Shin’s body slips away after another kiss. With Drifter, it always does. This one is stranger, though. There’s no bite or blood to it, no move to grab his clothes even if they tear. Hope is tender against Vale for once, kissing him just to kiss him, in sheer appreciation and that alone rather than any goal. Drifter hardly even realizes he’s doing it. They bend with one another pliantly. Shin lets himself be pulled flush to Drifter’s chest, and Drifter doesn’t snag his bandana back when Shin takes it off and throws it to the floor. Drifter doesn’t pull off anything from Shin as Shin does to him lest the mask fall back into place - only stops him when he’s down on armor because the floor of the Derelict is really not something they should fuck on.  


“Beautiful bastard.” Drifter succumbs to the affection in saying it, nose against Shin’s cheek.  
Shin tries to think of a time Drifter hadn’t gone eager and fast, shoving each other into cots and hallways and closets, and comes up with nothing. It leaves him unsure what to do, only trying to push away the ever present paranoia of a knife in the dark. Every time Drifter draws just close enough he twitches to catch a kiss from him.  
“Gonna hurry it up?” Shin asks, pressured into quiet.  
Drifter hums against Shin’s jaw, hands rubbing against his hips. “Impatience looks shit on you.”  
“You’re an eon or so older than me. Thought patience would’ve been built into you, and I was wrong.” Shin says, and gets another kiss. “A couple thousand years of hunting secrets and you don’t even look at your own properly. Can’t even — “  
“You keep choosin’ the wrong time to pick apart my life.”  


Drifter nudges his hips up against him, half-hard and still taking his time. Shin sighs into the kiss that comes next, starting to grind against him just to get him to do something. Anything. He stops only so he can pull the cowl from his own face, lets himself be bare and only glowing in love, or whatever’s happening. He’s not inclined to think on it. There’s no resistance when Shin drapes the cowl over The Drifter’s face and latches it as it needs. It looks different on him, like how poisonous frogs glow bright in warning. But Shin gives him what he wants to hear.  
“You’re a bastard.” He says, and finds a way to kiss Hope through the net.


End file.
